Terminal devices, including, but not limited to “smart” mobile telephones (smartphones), Personal Data Assistants (PDAs), laptop computers, tablet computers, e-book readers, set-top boxes, etc. are currently capable of loading apps which, in combination with an Internet connection may be designed to receive and display to the device's user targeted or untargeted advertising. The user typically may select or otherwise interact with the advertisement (ad), for example by clicking or touching, resulting in a resulting action such as opening a webpage, download site, or other network-accessible URL.
Advertisers provide ads for distribution to ad-requesting apps that reside on, for example, mobile terminal devices. In many cases, the advertisers provide their ads to at least one ad network. An ad network is an entity that connects advertisers to publishers that want to host advertisements. The ad network controls distribution of the ads to the ad-requesting apps via an ad server. The ad server may employ various means to target ads to appropriate apps. The ad network controls distribution to requesting apps of ads provided by the advertisers, selecting an appropriate advertisement and providing the advertisement for display by the requesting app.
An app publisher is an entity that controls the content of an app and may implement in the app a particular software development kit (SDK), supplied by the ad network. The SDK provides, for inclusion in the app, code or binaries to request one or more advertisements served by an ad server in an ad network. Ads distributed to publisher apps may be targeted based on one or more of several criteria including, but not limited to, ad consumer- or user-attributes supplied by the requesting publisher app, device attributes supplied via the publisher app and obtained from a device on which the publisher app resides (i.e., computer, mobile terminal device, point-of-sale, etc.), advertiser and/or publisher preferences, and/or any other available information. Alternatively, ads may be distributed blindly to any publisher that requests ads, although some ad networks offer a site opt-out.
An app publisher may register an app in the ad network associated with the ad server. This allows the app publisher to, for example, specify criteria for the type/number/format/target demographic/etc. of ads requested, and allows the ad server to more readily match ads with requests.
For distribution the app publisher typically provides the app to an app serving site (which may include at least major operating system-related app sites, various carrier or service provider sites, or independent one-off app sites) where users accessing the app serving site may download the app for use with the user's mobile terminal device. The app serving site stores at least information corresponding to the particular app, such as an identifier and text or descriptive information, such information being publicly or privately accessible.
However, the inventors have recognized a need in some instances to prevent ads from being distributed to certain types of apps, due to app server policies, advertiser criteria, ad publisher policies, and/or legal restrictions. Until now, no means has been provided for easily preventing all ads in an ad network from being distributed to a requesting app.